Love Stoned
by ImJudyGarland
Summary: Could a huge, one-night mistake be the one thing that finally brings two soulmates back together again? A Nick and Jess story. Nick and Jess. It's about Nick and Jess. Seriously.
1. Chapter 1

**Let me be clear, I DO NOT ship Nick and CeCe. This is NOT a story about them together. It's actually all about Nick & Jess. ****This is just an idea I had after seeing the previews for Dice. There's gonna be a happy ending, I promise. Review? Please don't hate me!**

Nick groaned outloud in his empty bedroom_. Daaamn. _His body had never succombed to a hangover like this one before. Well, at least since their last run of True American. Exhausted, he easily pushed the events of that particular morning-after out of his foggy brain. Yes, that time it was strictly alcohol. This latest event had included a heavy dose of brew, along with a certain herbal refreshment. He laid still, trying to remember something, anything from last night. _Aghh. Hurts too much. Try again later._

As he attempted to roll over in bed and bury his head under his flattened pillow, something stopped him, trapping his legs in place. Nick pulled the covers up to his forehead and looked down at his tired, worn body. He was still wearing his clothes from yesterday, but his jeans and boxers were pushed down around his lower thighs, almost to his knees, his entire set of junk fully exposed.

_Huh, that's weird. Must have fallen asleep trying to change. _Throwing the covers back he pushed himself up to sit on the edge. That's when he heard it. Breathing.

_The hell_... His eyes squinted in the semi-darkened room, trying to make sense of the idea of a human being in his bed at this particular time and place. Nick stood up and reached for the lamp, flipping the switch just as the figure quickly sat up in bed.

Nick blinked. And stared. And blinked while he stared at the brown skinned woman with a dazed look on her face, trying to make her surroundings match up to the man she saw standing dumbstruck before her.

Suddenly, Nick let out a high pitched squeal and jump backward. His jeans still around his knees, he grabbed his frontal area as he fell backwards to the floor, scrambling to get his jeans back up over himself.

CeCe sat motionless, both hands over her mouth, her large eyes so wide, it reminded him of that _House M.D._ episode where the patient's eye literally popped out of his own head. Shaking himself more awake, he made it to his feet and rapidly fastened his jeans back together.

CeCe screamed into her hands repeatedly, Nick suddenly silent in awe at what appeared to be happening right now.

"WHAT am I doing here Nick? WHAT is going on...? WHAT...WHAT?" She whispered harshly through her clenched teeth.

Nick's eyes scanned the room and fell on a square black wrapper at the foot of the bed, ripped open at the top. CeCe saw it as the same time and immediately clamped her hands over mouth again, trying not to let any sound out. She let go and yanked the covers off of her bare legs, then pulled them back up to hide her naked lower half.

"No. No. No no no no no NO! This can't be happening! This CANNOT have happened!" CeCe looked up at Nick, the terror in his eyes mirrored in hers as they both realized what they had done. "How did this happen, Nick? NICK! Are you listening to me? SAY SOMETHING!"

Nick stood catatonic beside the bed, eyes glazed over, mouth hanging wide open. "I don't...I don't know...I... I can't remember."

CeCe huffed out loud, "You CAN'T REMEMBER?"

Nick slowly came back to reality, "What do you mean _I _can't remember? Can YOU remember?"

CeCe squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on something, anything. Any one single moment from the night before. Quietly she answered him, "No. I can't remember either. Well, I know we were all out in the loft drinking, me, you and Winston. Then, Oh God, did I smoke pot? I did, didn't I? Why did I do that, that's not my thing at all!"

Nick grunted, "Yeah, well last night, it apparently was, I remember that much. We drank a few and took a few hits. Then you were laughing a lot. Like A LOT. And...that's the last thing I remember."

"I do remember laughing. And drinking a lot of vodka. And...that's it. That's all there is. HOW could we have ended up here, Nick? How? I'm not even attracted to you. Like, AT ALL. This just...this just doesn't make any sense."

Nick leaned back against his desk and scrubbed his hands over his face. "I never wanted this either. No offense, CeCe, you're obviously beautiful, but I can honestly say that I've never thought of you like that. For real. I just...I don't know..." Nick talked through his hands, overwhelmed by a sudden realization. "What's Jess gonna say?"

"Jess? Are you kidding me? Jess can NEVER know about this. No one can EVER know about this. You are going to get me out of this apartment without anyone seeing me, and we are going to pretend this never, ever, EVER happened. GOT IT?"

CeCe's voice rose with each _EVER_, startling Nick out of his stupor, "YES. Yes. You're right. This was a huge, HUGE mistake, and we will never talk about it again."

CeCe breathed a loud sigh, "Good. Great. Now, get me out of here."


	2. Chapter 2

So, here's the thing with Nick. He's been doubting himself for the last five months. Ever since that fateful morning-after argument that somehow snowballed into a hasty but very real breakup. Ever since he heard himself agreeing with Jess that becoming just friends again was the best thing for both of them. Ever since he let her pull his worn-out body into one last desperate hug.

Ever since then, he's been thinking. And thinking. And thinking some more. It's what his brain does, constantly runs over every important and insignificant thing that lands in it. Like why are blueberries so deceptively blue? Should he scrap_ Z is For Zombies_, or start over from when Laura gets bitten by the recently turned Mike Sr? And how many rhinestones should he use to line his glamour shot? Less is more, right?

And the one that has been given the most airtime in the last three years, Jessica Day. What is up with this girl? Why does she have to sing everything thirty percent of the day? A travel size feeling stick? And why did she let him kiss her that first night when she had clearly been in deep relationship waters with the doctor? Why did she kiss him back, kiss him_ like that_?

And then once he knew she wanted him, the wheels began turning more fervently. Why is she choosing me, a drunken cable thief? Did I really just let her do _that _to me during The Captain? She loves me?_ Me?_

Then he did something he had never done before. He let his guard down.

He finally, somehow, found a way to accept the fact that he was in a lasting relationship with, quite possibly, the love of his life. And the night of her birthday party, the night he knew for sure that he loved her, he let her kiss tell him, without words, that she really loved him too. That night they made love over and over until dawn, then slept so soundly in each other's arms that Nick again found himself checking her pulse several hours later, just to make sure.

It's safe to say he was in, every way, blindsighted. The day she said those words he had feared for months. _Are we ?_

And he didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to argue with her logic. He just blurted out what his heart was shouting, "No! I love you!"

But that wasn't enough for her. She wanted more. Something he couldn't give her. Something he didn't even have a clue about. And after months of grinding it over and over in his brain, he let himself admit it. There was never going to be a time when he was not in love with her. From the day they first met until this morning, when he watched her sprinkling sugar over her cornflakes. _She's it. She's the one. The only one for me._

And now, after what happened last night, he knew that he had permanently blew it. How could he have done it? He slept with her best friend? What kind of mindset could he have possibly been operating from that had allowed him to do something so irreparable? Even at his most drunk and kite-high, he had never blacked out like that. His mind unwillingly began to replay CeCe, jumping out of his bed half naked. He had averted his eyes as she hastily dressed and snuck out the door, thankfully, without being seen. How was he going to keep something this massive a secret? But he had to. If Jess ever found out...

"Nick? Why did you just pour chocolate milk into your coffee? Hey, that's not a bad idea actually. Choco-coffee-latte!" She giggled for a full minute, like she had made the most hilarious joke ever. Nick just stared at her, his eyes conveying his annoyance. He did his best to hide the mountain of guilt that sat behind his warm brown eyes, threatening to spill out as she stopped and studied him. "You really don't look so good, Nick. Bad night?"

Nick choked in his own spit and scooted back out of his chair and to his feet. "Bad night? What do you mean? I didn't have a night last night? Nothing. No night. J-just, nothing Jess!"

Jess paused, a spoon full of cereal at her mouth, watching Nick in full-on pre self destruct mode. "Uh, oookay. Relax Nick. I was just asking. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"What do you mean?" Nick all but shrieked. "There's nothing to tell, Jess. Nothing happened last night. Nothing! So just drop it, okay? I gotta go move my car."

Jess watched him scamper out the front door, without his car keys. Ever since their break up, reading him had gotten harder. It was as if that wall she had managed to break down after two years was being rebuilt all over again.

But this time she knew something was up. Maybe if she tried to talk to him again after school, he might have calmed down enough to talk about it? She knew the chance was slim. If getting Nick to talk about his feelings was hard while they were together, that window of opportunity was shutting itself all the more now.

What was he up to last night? Before she met Schmidt at the bar, Nick and Coach were hanging out watching some boring sporting event they had dvr'd and threatened Winston within an inch of his_ Bishy _life not to spoil for them. _Hey, didn't CeCe say she was gonna come hang out and watch with them? _CeCe had spent so much time pretending to like sports with her assorted boyfriends, that she had actually started to love it. _Maybe I'll check in with CeCe later and see what she knows? _

Jess headed off to work, determined to crack the newly hardened exterior of a one Nick Miller, no matter what it took.


End file.
